Mark Billingham - Lifeless

A woman, thirty-four: found at home by her boyfriend after gaffer-taping a twelve-inch Sabatier carving knife to the edge of a table, and pushing her neck against it.

Two murders, perhaps three; possibly even four. The Homicide Assessment Team would already have signed the Walthamstow killing over to an MIT. They would be waiting to see if the boy carved up in Wood Green recovered. They would certainly be taking a good, long look at the man whose girlfriend had supposedly killed herself so inventively

…

DS Samir Karim walked past Holland’s desk and held up a coffee. “Ready to get going as soon as I’ve got this down me…”

Holland nodded. He went back to the computer, pulled up the list of visits he’d been allocated to make later that morning, and printed them out. While he waited for hard copy to appear he looked at the details. He studied the names, addresses, and comments attached; aware all the time of those other details, still there in the bulletin window, inactive and partially hidden on the screen.

While some had spent their Friday night busy with gaffer tape, washing blood from their hands or disposing of petrol cans, others had been safe at home in front of the television, disgusted and entertained by Crimewatch ’s crime-lite version of such events, before picking up the phone-four hundred and twelve of them-to do their bit. ..

“How come we never get any of the overnighters?” Andy Stone was pulling on his jacket and moving toward him.

Holland thought that Stone had good reason to be pissed off. Obviously, a great many of the calls that had come in after the program had been made from outside London, so while those in the office liaised with the relevant local forces, members of the team had been dispatched bright and early. Officers were already on their way to Exeter, Aberdeen, Birmingham, and half a dozen other cities. Such interviews were coveted, and with good reason. Holland was one of those who would not have said no to a night away from home; getting a little time to himself and giving his expenses a hammering in the restaurant of a decent hotel.

“Luck of the draw, mate,” he said.

“Couldn’t you have swung something with the DCI?”

Holland thought that he probably could have. He wondered why, in spite of fancying the time away, he hadn’t even bothered to try. Chances are, Sophie would have offered to pack for him…

“So who are you heading out with?”

“I’ve got Mackillop,” Stone said. He brandished a piece of paper with his own list of names and addresses. “Me and Wonderbollocks are off to waste our time in Hounslow, Lewisham, Finchley. All the glamour locations…”

“We’ve got to check out every possible sighting,

Andy.”

“I know,” Stone said. “I’m kidding. Yourself?” Holland pointed across to Karim, who waved back and dropped what was left of his coffee into a wastepaper bin. “Me and Sam are going slightly more upmarket.”

“Eales hiding out in Mayfair, is he?”

“Well, we’ve got a woman reckons she’s seen him walking a dog on Hampstead High Street.” “Why are so many of these calls always from women?” Stone asked before wandering away. Holland thought it was likely to be something to do with women being more observant, and more likely to respond to appeals for help. More inclined, when it came down to it, to get off their arses and make an effort. They wouldn’t even have Eales’s name if it hadn’t been for that female assistant adjutant going the extra yard.

Seeing Karim heading over, looking ready for the off, Holland began gathering his things together. He guessed that he would be spending much of his day thinking about Lieutenant Sarah Cheshire, and nights away in posh hotels.

“I’ve put him in one of the rooms upstairs,” Maxwell said.

Thorne nodded. “I’ll follow you…”

Maxwell had collared Thorne in the cafe, explained that Lawrence Healey had found Spike passed out on the steps when he’d arrived to open up. “Not that unusual,” Maxwell said as he led Thorne toward the offices. “Their sense of time gets totally screwed. Sometimes they turn up in the middle of the night expecting to get breakfast and just nod off.”

They walked up the winding stone staircase. Thorne stared at the face of the boy on a drugawareness poster; the blackness of the mouth inside the smile. He could see that the resilience he’d described to Hendricks was only as temporary as the high.

“Healey actually thought Spike had OD’d,” Maxwell continued. “He spent twenty minutes walking him around, slapping some life into him.” Maxwell grinned. “Got a decent slap back for his trouble.”

“Sounds like Spike.”

“Looking at the state of him, though, I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time…”

They arrived at a door marked private. counseling in session. Maxwell knocked and pushed it open. “I’ll leave you to it. Give me a shout when you’re done.”

“Thanks, Bren.”

Maxwell took a step away, then turned, smiling. “Oh, I couldn’t get much sense out of Phil this morning. He had a bit of a headache for some strange reason. But he did manage to tell me about the two of us going out on a double date with you and Dave. Sounds like fun.. .”

Spike’s head was drooping, and the smoke from a cigarette rose straight up into his face. He was sitting on a dirty cream sofa, similar to the one Thorne remembered from the room where he and the others had watched the videotape. Looking around, Thorne realized that this room was virtually identical to that one, save for the absence of a VCR, and the fact that there were AIDS information leaflets on the coffee table rather than the Radio Times and TV Quick.

“Thought I’d got rid of you,” Thorne said. He flopped into an armchair, leaned forward, and began to drum his fingers on the edge of the table.

Spike raised his head, grinned, and spread out his arms; croaked a cheer that quickly ran out of steam. He was wearing cammies and his cracked, vinyl bomber jacket. The T-shirt underneath was stained, dark at the neck, and when he let his head fall back, Thorne could see the small, square wad of bandage and the plaster.

Thorne stroked the side of his own neck. “What happened here?”

“Abscess burst,” Spike said. “Stunk the fucking place out…”

The worst detective in the world could have seen that Spike was a long way gone. Thorne could only presume that he was carrying his works with him; that he’d managed to fix up somewhere, since Healey had found him outside the Lift and brought him indoors. Thorne guessed that Spike had spent every waking hour since he’d last seen him as fucked up as he was now.

“Where’ve you been?” Thorne asked.

Spike raised his hands to the hair that lay damplooking against his head. He gathered it between his fingers and tried in vain to push it up into the trademark spikes. “Around. Where have you been?”

“I knew you were upset about what happened…”

“What happened?”

“What happened to Terry,” Thorne said. “I knew the pair of you were upset.”

“I went to see my sister.”

“It doesn’t matter where you were. I’m happy you’re still in one piece.”

“She gave me some cash money…”

It was like talking to someone who was underwater, suspended beneath the surface of a liquid that thickened as they tried to speak. That was setting above them.

“Actually, in a way, Terry helped out a bit,” Spike said.

“How’s that?”

“I needed gear, ’course I did, loads of it. Both of us did. Most of these cocksuckers are hard as nails, like; wouldn’t matter what you said to ’em. But there’s a couple of dealers who’ve sussed that it’s always going to be good for business in the long run. They do me a favor one time, they know damn well I’ll be back tomorrow…